The Bay of Plenty Regional Council and Rotorua-based Crown Research Institute Scion will face off in court this week over the future of genetic modification in the region.
The Environment Court will sit in Mount Maunganui on Thursday and Friday to hear an appeal by Scion against a section of the Proposed Bay of Plenty Regional Policy Statement. The section sets out a precautionary approach to genetically-modified organisms in the environment.
The statement sets the Bay of Plenty's policy direction under the Resource Management Act, and regional and district councils must implement it.
Regional council senior planner Nassah Steed said Scion had appealed a small section titled "Precautionary approach" and wanted references to concerns about the risk posed by genetically-modified organisms in the Bay of Plenty deleted.
Mr Steed said this was in introductory text only and there were no issues, objectives or policies about genetically-modified organisms in the statement itself.
However Dr Elspeth MacRae, Scion general manager manufacturing and bioproducts, disagreed.
She said Scion had no problem with a precautionary approach being taken across the board. However its issue was with genetic modification being singled out when other activities - such as hazardous chemicals - were not.
Dr MacRae said there was already a national framework in place to control genetically-modified organisms, which did not need to be duplicated by councils.
"[This case] could have significant ramifications in terms of cost and duplication of effort over something that globally there is no evidence of problems with."
Scion carries out Environment Protection Authority approved field trials of genetically-modified trees.
Five other parties have joined the regional council's defence.